Egg Freezing follows a similar process to IVF.  The first part of both Egg Freezing and IVF involves the stimulation of your ovaries using fertility drugs.  There is no such thing as a ‘typical round‘ but generally speaking starting on day 2 or 3 of your period, you inject hormones into your stomach each day with the hope that as many follicles as possible will grow.  You have regular scans and blood tests every few days during the stimulation phase to measure the follicle growth and check your hormone levels which will indicate if the process is working or not.   Usually the stimulation phase lasts about 10-12 days. During this time hopefully all the follicles will grow to a good size.  When the majority of them are around 18-22mm, you are ready for egg collection.

The next hurdle is to see how many of the follicles contain an eggs (some are empty this is not possible to see from your scans).  The eggs are collected under ultrasounds scan guidance using sedation and then examined by an embryologist to see if they are mature or not.  The mature ones are able to be frozen and any others are discarded.

There are many things that can cause problems or force a cycle to be cancelled during the stimulation or egg collection process. I only know a handful of the things that have happened to me on my journey so far.  Below are a few that I wish I had known when I started my egg freezing journey:-

• On day 2 or 3 of your period you might not be able to start treatment for many reasons eg: a cyst, no follicles etc
• During the stimulation phase your body may not react to the hormones at all.  This may be seen through your blood work or the fact that on your scans the follicles are not growing
• You might have many follicles on your day 2/3 scan but then only a few may grow
• You might ovulate before egg collection
• You might have several follicles that grow, but they may not contain any eggs
• You might have eggs collected but they might not be mature and thus not be able to be frozen

And this is all BEFORE you get into the ‘defrosting’ of these eggs to hopefully use them for a pregnancy!